Shooter Jennings Shoots The Sh@t

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We chat it up with the legendary Waylon Jennings' rock n' roll son.

By Spence D.

He could have been the son of a preacher man. He could have been a son of a gun. Hell, he could have even been a sonnuvabitch. Instead, he was born the son of a bona fide outlaw country legend, which more or less sealed his fate, although he did try and avoid falling into the family business as much as possible by pulling up his Tennessee roots and relocating to the land of bubbling celluloid. Yet despite his left coast reorientation the pull of the country lifestyle was strong, at least in terms of the good ole music and ass kicking attitude that his father imparted upon him. Thus did the rambunctious Shooter Jennings, son of Waylon and a hell raiser in his own right, find himself helping to put the "O" back in country, honky tonk, and rock n'roll.

Shooter, like his father before him, is a country music rebel. Or maybe he's just a rock n' roll rebel hiding in the guise of country musician or vice/versa. Take your pick. Whatever the case may be, the young Jennings has indubitably mapped out his plan for bringing real, rabble rousing, beer swilling music back to the table. "Are you kidding me," he says when asked about the current state of the music world. "Have you heard some of the sh@t they've put out this year?" His voice trails off into rough hewn laughter and a light-hearted, but serious dissing of several chart topping, vapid acts that are popular with the kids.

Which brings us to Shooter's bona fide debut Put The O Back In Country. Granted Jennings helmed the Los Angeles based rock band called Stargunn, but after a long run in that outfit, he fell back into his old sh@t kicking country habits. Still, one has to wonder about the culture shock he inflicted upon himself when he made the fateful decision to relocate from Nashville to Tinseltown. "Oh yeah, it totally was," he says. "It's cool, man, I mean it's fine. LA is LA. It's a bunch of bullsh@t, but it's beautiful and there's a lotta good friends there. But it's better than when I was in Nashville, 'cause when you're in Nashville it's like your in the system. It sucks. It feels like everyone's watching you, and it's like a little sewing circle and everybody talks. It's a small town. In Hollywood nobody gives a sh@t about you. You could go there and do whatever you want. At least I could. So I like it, man. I'll probably move back one day, but it was definitely a culture shock at first. It about killed me. It definitely broke up my old band and I'm just trying to pick up the pieces now."